How to care for potatoes to ensure a good harvest

Proper potato care is essential for receiving a fair reward for your tireless efforts. Knowing how to care for a bountiful harvest can help you achieve excellent results and significantly increase your planting yield.

During winter, firm, large tubers are a worthy addition to a healthy and nutritious diet, adding a pleasant touch of variety to the daily menu. Potatoes, cooked in any form, are a staple and beloved dish characteristic of our national culture. Their consumption has no clear contraindications for any illness. A skilled cook can use them in dozens of dishes, and careful and thoughtful storage ensures the resulting supply lasts until the next harvest.

Beginning vegetable growers decide for themselves how to care for potatoes, whether it's the traditional method learned from their parents or the scientific method recommended by gardening websites to ensure a good harvest. Some believe they have sufficient practical experience, while others look to reviews, recommendations, and photos to increase the productivity of their small garden plot.

Commercial cultivation sometimes doesn't allow for all the recommended measures to improve field productivity. A small or medium-sized plot can be tended using scientific and practical techniques to ensure a rewarding harvest. Potatoes are a crop that responds well to care and can reward the gardener with a bountiful harvest.

Caring for vegetable crops and its features

For someone who regularly cares for potatoes, caring for them involves a series of consistent and necessary rituals, beginning immediately after the fall harvest, when the amateur gardener goes out to dig the garden. The soil is dug no deeper than a spade's depth, so as not to disrupt the ecosystem of beneficial soil bacteria. Those who are more principled against chemical fertilizers then cover the plot with chopped straw, removed plants, and other organic matter; others apply chemical fertilizers to ensure a bountiful harvest.

Potato care involves several stages, each of which occurs at a specific time:

• application of organic fertilizers to maintain soil balance, which otherwise will only be restored at the beginning of June (the beneficial components will freeze over the winter);
• retention of groundwater, or its outflow from the site, with the help of basic devices - drainage ditches and soil covering;
• selection, disinfection and preliminary germination of planting material, varietal preferences, protection from thermal effects;
• correct planting, in a fertilized hole, at an optimal distance (dense planting will lead to species competition, sparse planting will give space to weeds);
• hilling, which allows the roots that form the tubers to make maximum use of the surrounding underground space;
• aerial irrigation, which helps enrich the soil with nitrogen;
• top dressing, which must be carried out at a strictly defined time and consist of a set of substances necessary for the plant at a specific period;
• watering, its dosage under different weather conditions;
• correct and qualified harvesting.

You can learn how to care for potatoes to ensure a good harvest, with minimal investment and effort, and a full return on your investment not only from scientific textbooks and publications, but also from personal experience. Many scientific findings have grown from practical observations and the introduction or elimination of certain processes.

Harrowing potatoes

Harrowing is one of the methods for caring for potatoes, carried out with a rake on a personal plot, or with a tractor with the appropriate device (harrow) on an industrial scale in fields.

Its main goals are:

• weed control achieved by breaking up the top layer of soil in which weeds take root with the tines of the device;
• providing potato bushes with air, which contains oxygen and nitrogen, necessary for the development of the plant (the crust formed on the soil prevents its penetration);
• destruction of soil capillaries that appeared after the soil was dried by the sun (the moisture accumulated in them goes to the roots of the potato bush.

Fall and spring harrowing of fields is performed to distribute organic fertilizer and prepare for spring planting. Harrowing tools with different teeth are used for this, and the process is performed twice, at different angles to the soil. The type of harrow also depends on the soil composition. After planting, potatoes are harrowed during the day to allow the weeds to dry in the sun and prevent re-sprouting.

Until the bushes reach 15 cm, harrowing can be done weekly. This will kill about 1% of the bushes in the field. In a small area, this loss can be avoided by careful raking.

Loosening potatoes

One of the secrets to properly caring for potatoes. Sometimes, harrowing is omitted from the care process, believing that subsequent harrowing will do the job just fine, but experienced vegetable growers consider it essential for a good harvest. In the field, harrowing is done with a fine harrow. It loosens the top layer of soil and destroys weed seeds while the potato sprouts are still in the ground. In the garden, harrowing is done with a rake, at a shallow depth. This is necessary to prevent the plant from wasting its energy trying to penetrate the tough crust.

Hilling potatoes

Not everyone knows how to care for potatoes to ensure a good harvest. Hilling is one of the key tips for this type of care.

This is the sprinkling of soil over the bottom of a potato bush, which is carried out at different times to achieve a specific goal:

• preventing weed growth;
• imparting looseness and permeability to the soil, which allows for the unimpeded penetration of moisture and air;
• creating a thermos effect to protect the sprout from wind and frost;
• ensuring stability for the young bush;
• intensification of growth (the plant begins to reach towards the sun, more branches and leaves appear on the bush).

The first, anti-thermal hilling, is carried out when the sprouts reach 5 cm. This is done to preserve the sprout. The second, after the plant reaches 15 cm in height, is done for the first flowering, to promote better growth and development of future tubers. An unscheduled hilling is carried out when the bushes have stretched and are lying flat on the soil. This is done to provide stability and protect the tubers from the damaging sun.

Classic hilling involves a two-step process, but it can be done in two different ways. Fan hilling involves raking the soil directly around the plant, while high hilling involves raking the soil toward the center and spreading the plant's branches slightly outward. Both methods have their proponents and detractors. High hilling is more commonly used in northern regions, where the chosen care method ensures maximum resistance to weather conditions.

Watering potatoes

Potatoes only need watering during the flowering period, preferably in conjunction with fertilizing, although much depends on the weather. Moderate rainfall and alternating sunny weather preclude the need for additional moisture, although some homeowners consider light watering during extreme heat and cracked soil conditions.

Potato fertilizing

The classic and proven option is to feed the plant three times:

• when growth occurs, but the leaves and stems are pale and not developing intensively enough (humus and urea);
• when buds are forming, to speed up flowering (ash and potassium sulfate);
• when the fruits of the vegetable grower's tireless labor begin to develop (superphosphate, or superphosphate with potassium sulfate and nitrophoska).

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Experienced vegetable growers report that using the above methods plus pest control through spraying will yield a wonderful potato harvest that will not only be a source of pride but also a joy for the whole family.